Proj3 Gallo

When watching Brian Jordan Alvarez’s Youtube web series ‘The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo’, I witnessed the allowances of this medium utilized twofold. While each episode ran on the long side in terms of web series (around 20 minutes), all were filled to the brim with backstory, character nuance, and intricate details from the relationships each character held with the others. It is hard to explain the manic-y paced tempo of the series, each episode flowing jauntily through its narrative, with missing scenes and no transition shots to account for. But it is through that uneven tempo that the show shines, its unpredictability only adding to the ambience of restlessness while the viewer is forced to strap themselves in and watch for every detail. All of the characters' lives are masterfully entwined, a difficult feat considering how many moving parts each character has within their own identities, yet ‘Caleb Gallo’ somehow manages it. The fast paced fluctuation of the characters and plot is what gives the show its queer-friendly eye, never stopping to fetishize nor question any of the characters’ queerness is what centers queerness as the hegemonic undercurrent of the show. The show’s distinct rejection of the hetero/homosexual binary is what allows each character to be read as queer, as queerness is exemplified by each characters’ ability to travel through and unsettle that very binary.
‘Caleb Gallo’’s use of queerness as both backdrop and centerpiece hands over power to the queer, and therefore hands over power to all.